War cannot take your name

The frame of the couch in the great main room had already surrendered. Even though not one of the 61 “children” weighed more than 120 pounds, the wooden frame and cushions somehow had not been prepared for the weight of grief and trauma each soul would be carrying.  I sat enveloped in the weary springs of it and watched as 6 year old Bokdonna observed the other  children jostling around. I caught her looking my way several times and I could read her eyes, her body language. While I spoke only one word of Ukrainian at that point, my heart understood the language she was screaming with through her eyes. 

I patted the wilted cushion beside me, inviting her close in what I hoped was a universal gesture. Her “childlike adventurous spirit for new places” circuit was blown by the bombs that had driven her mother to put her on a bus with strangers for a 9 hour bus ride to another country. She clutched a cell phone in her hand, her only link to her life in Ukraine. In the days to come I would come to resent those cell phones and the sudden wail of an air raid siren that would simultaneously pierce the air from each child’s phone, reminding them when their home town was under attack. 

But for now, though she still would not meet my eyes, she timidly sat down close to me. I put my arm up offering to pull her close and she leaned in.

One month ago we had not one reason to ever meet each to her.

BUT WAR HAD COME.

I knew I was not dangerous, I knew I was safe. I knew the intentions of my heart. She did not. War had given her no options but to remain standing there alone or to risk my offer. 
I could feel her muscles melt in to me, I pulled her whole body close against my side.

Then she just clung.

In the next 24 hours we quickly realized that each of the kids still possessed ONE thing that had NOT been taken away from them, ONE thing that was immeasurably personal and that would bring a smile to even the most distant of them…and that was the sound of their name. So for the next 2-3 days we worked hard to twist our tongue around their names and the importance to them of being pronounced correctly. Simply walking to the kitchen/meal hall became a test of memory…but each recall we saw their hearts and smiles crack open. 

When we said yes to serving a few months in Romania near the Ukraine border, we were prepared for action, for manual labor in cold warehouses, for long drives into Ukraine to deliver thousands of food packages, we were prepared to GO, to DO, to WORK….and there has been some of that for sure. 

Packing food bags and inventorying donated goods have left us dirty and tired and happy. 

What we were not prepared for was the open door into over 200 little (ish) human hearts. 

The organization we are serving here has found and created beautiful spaces for these children to wait out the war. Some are full orphans (whose entire Ukrainian orphanage has been temporarily relocated to these safe places) some are just children at risk who happen to be from cities that are in the occupied zone that are not safe AT ALL to live in. 

From sun up to long past sun down we worked through translators and wove deep down into their hearts and stories. What a wide open door to share the LOVE of Jesus. War and living as a refugee opens doors that otherwise could take years to open.

THANK YOU to those of you who have made this trip possible through your prayers and financially giving to Relentless Hope. 

A cure that works

Many years ago, tossing in the fever soaked sheets of my bed on our island in remote S.E Asia, I had stumbled upon a rare and precious cure for the cancer of my heart.

My body was fighting yet another case of malaria and I had medication for that, but my heart was fighting discouragement and disillusionment, and it was spreading.

I stumbled upon a blog of a then “unknown” pig farmers wife. She told tales of her crippling anxiety crumbling away as she began a simple practice of gratitude. She had scribbled a collection of 1000 “gifts”, 1000 things she was thankful for…and it so transformed her life that her story became a book (One Thousand Gifts by Ann Voskamp)

I began scribbling my own gratitudes, my own thanks…one by one,

~ Malaria medication

~ A fan

~ Electricity

~ Clean water

I found healing and joy in wringing out gratitude from the hard day,

~ Ben’s 105 degree fever broke…

~ A translucent blue butterfly in the trees of our jungle home…

But here I was 12 long years later. I had gone back to school in that time and walked the road to a Doctorate in Counseling. So many complex theories and methods were stored in my head. I was no longer in the S.E Asian jungle, I was sitting in a hard wooden chair a half hour from the Ukrainian border.

There was snow was falling outside the smudged windows of the camp meeting hall where  61 Ukrainian children were gathered who had been evacuated out of their homes only 2 weeks before. Their towns and villages were being mercilessly targeted by the Russian army.

The goal of this day was to find a routine for them. When the human brain has experienced trauma its first reaction is NOT to buckle down and be productive, none of them could focus well. Some had been doing variations of on-line school for three years at this point as the enemy of Covid had passed the baton to the war.

They were restless. The teenagers slumped in their chairs, the little ones nervously still rubbing sleep out of their eyes and scratching their heads (what we would later realize was an outbreak of lice in its stealthy infant stages).

Suddenly 20 or so cell phones shrieked an air raid siren from their hometown. It happened on cue, it seemed just as we gathered them together in the morning. What fragile attention we had won was shattered as their faces went somber and their minds scrambled to cope with a reality that they were not created to deal with. Not now in their young years. Not ever!

When was the last time you heard an air raid siren indicating your city was under threat of being bombed….again?

When was the last time you heard an air raid siren in your heart indicating your inner world was about to spin out of control….again?

I wondered if my simple tattered and tried prescription of giving thanks could even work in a place like this? I had seen it work for individuals…but a traumatized group of displaced children? During war?

Isn’t “giving thanks” a little “simple” and demeaning when some of them had lost parents to Russian tanks?

Nevertheless, I stood up and we began the morning gathering …and I proposed my “cure” for the grey feeling they all wore on their souls like an ill fitting coat.

They gave me “blank face”…my least favorite response! So I started in myself…a nervous swirl in my belly…so I could show them how simple it could be.

“Every morning we will try for 20 things”, I started in…

~ Sun

~Clean water

A little hand went up shyly

~ “The Ukrainian Army”?

Yes, dear one. What little girl of 6 feels most thankful for an Army?

Then another

~“The sausage this morning with our bread”…

And so it began.

They struggled through the first days to grasp the simplicity of gratitude. It seemed their thoughts and worries were so heavy that most had lost the ability to see if any good was still there.

But it began to flow.

4 weeks after we started the page for just one day was filled to the brim with 175 declarations of gratitude.

The prescription was working.

The war and hate still raged on in their cities, but the war in their hearts against discouragement and disillusionment was being won, one statement of thankfulness at a time.

What “war” are in you that has attacked your joy and peace and left you as a refugee in a place you didn’t ever want to be?

If a group of displaced Ukrainian children who are aching to believe their home and parents will still be there when the war ends can scribble out 175 statements of gratitude a day…maybe we should just join them?

I’ll start.

~ I am thankful for you dear reader.

~ I am thankful for the sausage this morning with my bread.

~ I am thankful for the sun.

Starving at the Feast

About three years ago I (Brian) was deep into a season of healing in my life. I was searching for answers to some of my pains and shames, mostly brought on by living neither hot nor cold....but lukewarm. Standing in the garden of my heart it felt like I saw more invasive weeds than fruitful crops. Feeling at the bottom, my heart finally tuned into the voice of Jesus, and this is what I heard…

"Brian (Jesus said), I want you to think of everything from now on with an eternal perspective".

Perspective takes a long time to change and for too long the wrong perspectives had landed my heart in the cold of winter. I did not know how to change perspective, but I was committed to His process! It started with these verses from Revelation 14 being dropped in my lap.

“To the angel of the church in Laodicea write:

These are the words of the Amen, the faithful and true witness, the ruler of God’s creation. I know your deeds, that you are neither cold nor hot. I wish you were either one or the other! So, because you are lukewarm—neither hot nor cold—I am about to spit you out of my mouth. You say, ‘I am rich; I have acquired wealth and do not need a thing.’ But you do not realize that you are wretched, pitiful, poor, blind and naked. I counsel you to buy from me gold refined in the fire, so you can become rich; and white clothes to wear, so you can cover your shameful nakedness; and salve to put on your eyes, so you can see.

Those whom I love I rebuke and discipline. So be earnest and repent. Here I am! I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with that person, and they with me."

"Brian my door is always open, but this is how you show up to my invitation. You stand at the doorway and gaze at the feast, which is rightfully yours as an adopted son. Your shame has been pronounced over, your filth has been removed, righteousness in me awaits you, the table is set before you and we are to dine together.

Yet you are more secure wearing your garments of shame and brokenness than the garments of internal freedom.

Why do you stand at the door starving and gaze at the feast that I have prepared for you and I?

Come and drink deeply of my pleasures, Experience for yourself the joyous mercies I give to all who turn to hide themselves in me" (read Psalms 34:8 in the Passion Translation).

I want you to Taste and See that I am good! and you will be blessed when you take refuge in me (Psalms 34:8 NIV)

My friends. We all have pain. We all have areas where we sit and gaze at the table of provision, yet settle for crumbs swept out the door while our prepared seat sits cold. Taste and See. Your seat is at the table!

Ask Jesus what it means to buy gold refined in the fire and then listen to you heart. Your "circumstance(s)" could be keeping you starving outside the door when the TRUTH wants you "feasting" with Him at the table! Taste and See and watch your perspective begin to shift!

Smelly Stables!

If 2020 was a place, it might look like a stable.
A smelly spot we got “stuck” in on the way to somewhere else.

The wind blows through the cracks,
our companions might feel mute and smelly,
we feel vulnerable and exposed.

Even for a pregnant teenager 2,020 years ago
a stable was not an ideal place to birth the Promise.
The “stable walls” of your December 2020 may not look like an ideal place to be.

Can I pass by your “stable” of circumstances in this minute? Can I bend low through the door of disappointment and delays?
Can I crunch over the straw of uncertainty and fear?

...AND can we marvel together at the TRUTH that this is in fact
THE VERY PLACE that HE DRAWS VERY NEAR.

It’s the very place He CAME TO DWELL AMONG US 2,020 years ago!
and His plan has not changed.

So join me, let’s light the candle, put the kettle on, posture our hearts before Him and set the table for the King in this “stable” of our year!

He is HERE beloveds, Emmanuel GOD WITH US!

Right Weekend ~ Wrong Fire

18 years ago my toddler son was trying to make sense of being home in America for the first time in his little memory. Everything was new to him. He had arrived on the mission field of Indonesia when he was just 6 weeks old. His first words were a mix of Indonesian and English.

Furlough (a missionary’s “home” assignment for the purpose of reconnecting with family and supporters) was hard on our tribe of little boys. “Home” to them was the little jungle town they were growing up in. In their limited world, our white skin was the minority. Our world was majority people of color. Our church in Indonesia was a sea of ebony dancing their hearts out before Jesus, tears running down their faces as they called out for revival in their land wracked with tribal violence. 

Our Sundays in America were so different. 

We walked into yet another church service of faces unknown to my sons, I was especially tuned in to their overwhelmed feelings on this particular Sunday.  In this church there were only a few people of color in the congregation. After the service I watched my three year old son Adam spot a large man of color in the foyer and his shy little countenance lit up like Christmas. His chin lifted and he set out on his toddler legs to be in  this man’s presence which represented safety to him. He turned playfully in close proximity to the familiarness and feeling of “normalness” this man carried for my son. This man did not know what to do with the sudden attention of this little one.

If only he had known what he represented to my boys. He was safety, familiar, kindness, “home”. 

I should have told him. 

I watched my son register that this man did not know him, that this man did not react to his blonde head of hair like the other colored men of his childhood world had, mussing up his straw like hair with their big strong hands. 

I watched that day, watched the sunset of innocence start to set in little Adam’s mind. No longer did a certain color of skin guarantee a certain degree of relationship. I felt the iron weight of responsibility settle on my shoulders. I was raising four very white men. Their interpretation of the world, and the color of people’s skin, would be largely formed by me for at least the next decade of their lives. They would learn subconsciously how to believe based on my ever so subtle actions, not to mention my out loud processing and decisions. One of the heaviest weights of being a mother is the 18 year journey of creating glasses for her children to interpret the world through. God help us.

This Sunday I wake up in America again, an America burning with the wrong fire. For 49 days now I have set my eyes on tomorrow’s date. Pentecost Sunday. 50 days after Easter. So many of us have been asking God to pour out His Holy Spirit on us like He did in the book of Acts. 

(Background…on this day nearly 2000 years ago, the people had gathered to celebrate Shavuot, a feast commemorating God writing His commandments on tablets of stone on Mt Sinai. When Jesus walked victoriously out of the grave His radical plan of redemption began unfolding. Of utmost importance to Him was stripping off the outer forms and requirements of the LAW and instead writing His instructions for life on the flesh of our hearts. His blood was the endless ink. His Holy Spirit IN US. He told His disciples to wait and pray as they gathered for Shavuot. They did. The Holy Spirit fell on them in what appeared to be fire resting on their heads, the rest of the story is even more incredible, read it in Acts 2.)

Long story short, a city “caught on fire” with the presence of God among them, in them, each of them carrying the fire of the Spirit of God. No longer was the LAW an outside force imposed on them. SUDDENLY it was a living God burning them up from the inside and pouring out of their mouths making them appear so overwhelmed they were mistaken for drunken men. 

The Holy Spirit fire, chapter by chapter began burning away every single division among us. 

Black, white, young, old, man, woman. 

The news last night pushed a collective anguished groan out of the American lung. What has happened? A 49 day prayer vigil for FRESH FIRE to fall on all of us….only to wake up to fires consuming building after building in city after city. The very people entrusted with the upholding of the law of the land left standing immobilized by unprecedented circumstances. 

RIGHT WEEKEND

WRONG FIRE

On that day of Pentecost 2000 some years ago, men of many races, color, and language had come to the city to celebrate the Feast. When the Holy Spirit fell in that city, EACH RACE, EACH LANGUAGE, EACH ETHNIC GROUP heard their “own tongues speaking of the mighty deeds of God”. (Acts 2:12)

Dear ones, while I am so grateful for the laws and those that seek justly to uphold them, for freedom of speech and the other foundations we are teetering on, we have tumbled past the fence. 

We are burning with a pain that handcuffs and jail bars and courtrooms and social media posts cannot resolve. 

We need tomorrow. “And when the day of Pentecost had come, THEY WERE ALL TOGETHER IN ONE PLACE” (Acts 2:1) 

A virus has prevented us from gathering all together in our “one place” buildings. 

Our ONE PLACE has been redefined.

So here we are. 

Day 49. 

Our collective hearts gathered.

We are black, we are white, we are so many colors. We are angry, we are grieved, we are afraid, we are faith filled, we are hopeful, we are longing. We are not the best versions of ourselves by a very long stretch. We are every rag tag version of THE ONES YOU DIED FOR. 

Fall again on us. 

Consume our structures of pain and racism and anger and misunderstanding with THE FIRE of YOUR PRESENCE.

Come fall on us again.

Meanwhile

While January still had her newborn smell about her I listened to hear for the word that the Lord would give me for the year 2020. Some years He had skipped and simply rolled the word from the last year over into the next, expanding and cementing its revelation. I somehow knew this year would hold a new word. I waited. Then it came.

Have you ever playfully read the slip inside a fortune cookie while your Chinese food sought to settle and wished deeply you could exchange it with a friend before they noticed … chancing on a more hopeful token of whimsical encouragement? I have.

Others vulnerably shared their words for the year in my little circle of women, then I shyly and curiously revealed mine.

“God gave me the word ‘Meanwhile’…”

MEANWHILE!?!?!?!

Like a note played out of tune the word just hung there awkwardly amongst us.

What kind of a word is that?

I held it, pondered it and tried to get used to allowing it in my space. I will confess that it carried a lot of questions with it.

“Meanwhile” what God?

“Hey Susan, your plans for your life are going to be put on hold, so meanwhile you can…..”.

In the year that I had prayed would hold long awaited breakthrough and momentum meanwhile felt a detour and very unhelpful. In the past I had loved the words the Lord had given me. I had them inscribed on keys that I wore on chains around my neck and even toyed with the idea of tattooing them on my arms. Why had God invited “meanwhile” to the gathering, it felt like a grumpy, threatening relative at a family dinner. It would have to be “side-eyed” suspiciously for a bit for sure.

We stepped powerfully into January. We flew to the Middle East as planned and saw ministry begin to unfold beautifully. '“Meanwhile” would have to find a seat somewhere near the back, we had so much to DO!

As we began our return journey to the U.S the world began to rumble with the news of some strange virus trickling out of some far away place. Like a tsunami what began as an “unusual flu from somewhere in Asia” suddenly vacated the Vatican, locked up Wall Street and closed up borders, economies, front doors and churches. The deadliest threat our world had faced in our time came via the life source of all things living… “contact”…and the more friendly or intimate the more dangerous. Everything flipped.

“God”, I whispered “it seems everything has stopped, income and output, it’s frozen”

He leaned close and cupped my face in His presence and spoke into the “eyes of my ears”.

“Susan, this is your meanwhile”.

The world can lock everything up, but heaven is OPEN for business. No mask, no gloves, no distance. Come as you are. Come coughing, come feverish, come weak and scared and poor. Just come. The door is open wide, there is a seat, a fire burning and living water in a cup.

Come. Come meet “Meanwhile”.

Meanwhile (According to Websters)

1. during the intervening time.

The world is spinning recovery proposals large and fast as we tentatively emerge from our bunkers and assess.

Meanwhile the table is set inside His presence, where He prepares a table in the presence of your enemies. Do you see your enemies there? Fear, worry and uncertainty to name just a few…they fall speechless as we step into Jesus’s invitation to us to come INTO HIS PRESENCE.

John 10:10

“The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life and have it abundantly”.

Do you see where Meanwhile fits in that verse?

Susan’s interpretation for this season…

“Covid and its designer come only to steal and kill and destroy in every way. MEANWHILE, Jesus comes and offers all of us life, not just survival, but HIS presence with us in this world, and our presence with Him in His.”

That awkward word now feels like a prophetic gift.

Maybe I will get that tattoo.